Race Report: Eagleman 70.3 2023

Race Morning
Before I can go into how the day went, we must turn the clocks back 24 hours to Saturday morning. The day started out as ordinary until …. I went to grab shorts out of the suitcase. Yep, if you’re over 40 you can probably guess what happened next. One of the my worst back seizes in memory. My wife helped by giving me a back massage and also applying some Rock Tape, but even walking was not as easy as breathing. After some breakfast and bed stretching, we loaded the bikes onto the car and headed to the bike check-in. We had gotten parking that was pretty close to the expo/transition, so it was a short walk. At one of the closed side-streets I decided to test how pedaling would go and was pleasantly surprised cycling was possible. We dropped off the bikes, got dinner and prepped for Sunday.

So the alarm went off as programmed and the back was only marginally better. We got dressed, grabbed our bags & nutrition and headed to our pre-paid parking lot. Walking to transition was okay, probably not as fast as I normally stride, but relatively pain-free. It took a little bit to get down to the ground to lay out my towel, shoes (bike & run) and other stuff. And putting on the sleeveless wetsuit was not as easy as it should have been. I only had it waist-high when the announcer indicated that transition was closing.

Swim Leg
So I made my way to the funnel of athletes with volunteers holding signs for expected swim times. I slowly advanced up to the 40 minute sign, pulled up my wetsuit so I could at least get the top secured, made sure to re-attach my timing chip, and then got my Fenix 5S ready to record. From what I remember, it had +60% battery remaining, so plenty to record this (so I thought). After the swim cannon fired for the supes to start their race, we slowly advanced forward to the Choptank River. When I go close the start arch, I heard Dave Ragsdale over the mic ask “And where is David Mioduszewski?” I happened to be on the right side of the corral near him, so I waved until he saw me. Not long after that I was at the human guardrail where everyone had to wait 5 seconds before descending the padded ramp into the water. The water had a slight chill to it throughout the whole swim, but it wasn’t the coldest I’ve been in. I kept pretty straight and close to the buoys as I went, and only 2-3 times did I have to deal with crowds, not including the turns. I did have to pause a few times to de-fog my goggles. The river was pretty murky and it tasted as such … I would recommend taping your mouth shut to prevent this as my throat was irritated afterwards. I got to the swim finish ramp, got out.

T1
Remember how I wrote that I made sure my watch was set up and it had plenty of battery? Walking up the ramp out of the river and heading to the area of wetsuit strippers I went to hit the lap button and noticed the screen was blank. “WTF?” After I got my wetsuit taken off (with a little assistance getting down and up) I walked to my bike attempting to see if it had just turned off somehow – no luck. I had set my main bag off to the side of transition so I tossed my wetsuit on top of it and sat down by my bike to clean my feet & put on my bike shoes, helmet, and glasses. Made my way to the Bike Start arch, swung my leg over my bike and started pedaling.

Bike Leg
The course is okay compared to some other races I’ve done. I can’t tell how fast or slow it is, as my watch didn’t survive the morning. But there weren’t any steep climbs, rolling hills or long descents. The course goes through some neighborhoods, along some roads and then winds through Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge before winding back to the race site. I passed some wheat fields, some more fields, some marsh land, more marsh land, fields, fields, fields. I did spot what looked to be a beaver’s apartment with a mound of tree branches & parts in the marshes. I kept myself as comfortable as I could on the bike; only towards the last few miles did I have to do a standing stretch will coasting. I did stop once for the port-o-potty at the aid station around mile 18. I think the constant pedaling helped to loosen the hips a bit to make getting off and back on the bike a bit easier. I pushed when I could, eased back when I needed to, and took advantage of a tail wind as provided. Overall the bike course was good, well marked and the aid stations seemed to be well run – although I didn’t notice any theming or decorations. After about 56 miles, the bike finish arch came into view which meant a dismount was coming up.

T2
I did have to lean the bike a bit more than normal to swing my right leg over it, but I was able to walk to my spot in transition okay. After racking my bike and getting my helmet, glasses and shoes off, I really felt the tightness standing there. It got the point where I doubted even heading out for the half marathon. But then I thought, “Just get out there.” I put on my socks and Endorphin Pro’s, grabbed my zip lock bag of nutrition, container of generic Motrin, & my race belt with the bib on it, and got out there.

Run Leg
I started walking and that was okay, and kept that up until another racer came up to me whom was slowly jogging. He had a neat Zoot kit (that ended up not being available anymore), so I decided to see how jogging would go. We ended chatting for a few minutes until he had to take a rest walk; I was feeling fine so I kept it up until the first aid station almost a mile into the run. Before getting to that aid station I took off that fully dead Garmin and put in my back pocket with the nutrition bag and Motrin container. For the first loop of two I mostly jogged until each aid station, getting a cup of something (water, Gatorade, or Coke) and adding ice cubes to the 3 small pockets in my top. I only took the generic Motrins twice the first loop, so the remaining pills gave a little shaker noise in the container as I jogged. I didn’t push the pace to go what I had originally planned on running, so the 2hr half marathon was out of the question. Runners passed me, I passed walkers and slower joggers. Being two out-and-back loops I saw my wife a few times in passing (she had a better overall race than I and a PR bike split) so we got to keep tabs on each other. A couple of times my lower back would give a slight “spazz” whenever I think I leaned too much to the side or direction. Other than that, I was fine. The second loop probably went a little bit slower than the first loop (no watch nor can tell time by the sun’s angle) as the temps slowly went up and there was not much shade, but I still kept jogging as much as I could and adding ice to my pockets. There were definitely people from less humid states at the race as a few times I came upon people either hands on the knees or were being tended to by volunteers or medical staff. Eventually, I made it to the split in the run loop where instead of turning right for another loop, I got to turn left for the finish line. I did pick it up a bit here so I could pass a few runners and not have to “share” the finish arch photos. As luck would have it, I heard David Ragsdale call my name as a finisher and I gave him a wave. The race was over … for me, anyway.

Post-Race
Thus, the race was over and the finisher medal was well earned. If you put in the training and aware of what you are capable of, you can accomplish something that might seem improbable. Would I do that race again? Yeah, it was well run, had a lot of helpful volunteers and supplies, and is in a nice area.

First off, every race is a learning experience. No matter how many you do, no matter how long you have been racing, every race is going to be different. Even if you do the same race & venue, you physically are different, the weather could be different, dozens of factors go into a race. But when you do a race for a first time, you add more uncertainty. We had the course maps, heard from other people who had done the race previously, had even drove most of the run and bike course the day before. So we knew that the course was unshaded. But wow, when the forecast calls for cloudy skies all day and you get none of that all day, it can be rough.

Swim was a double mass start: one for the long peeps and then a later one for the short peeps (half iron or short course). We actually had to wait for the sun to rise, sometime after 7am so that the lifeguards could get the buoys placed. The ocean was not completely flat, but the waves did not go out far. We had to swim in a kind of T pattern: straight out, left turn, 180° to head south a long while until we hit the other turnaround buoy and then the other left turn buoy to take us back to the beach. But wait, I forgot the fun before and at the start: Now while the waves were only close to shore, they were pretty intense. Just standing in knee deep, my ankles were getting pounded by the shells picked up from the waves going both in & out. I should have taken that into account when the race finally started, as before I got to that first turn buoy I went to take a breath and was figuratively punched in the face by one of those strong waves. It took a good minute to recover (and several more to clear my lungs) and get my bearings, even a fellow member of Boca Raton Tri (Stefano) stopped next me and asked if I was okay. Once I got over that it was just a matter of getting to the next buoy. That proved uhhh, let’s say fun, as the current (going south) was enough to keep pushing my direction towards the shore. I think I must have done at least 1.5 miles instead of the posted 1.1 miles. And it turns out I kept some the ocean with me the rest of the day.

The bike, oh the bike. Started out okay, heading north for about 12 miles along good ol’ A1A – almost 100% flat, except for the few bridges that went over some canals. There was water bottle station at about mile 10 – remember that. The forecast was for calm to less than 5mph out of the NE for most of the morning, but it turned out to be more of a straight crosswind – it felt like a headwind going both north and then south, but a breeze going west. Unfortunately after going through the roundabout (mile 24) and turning west it lead straight to the NE Causeway bridge. And oh what a bridge it was! I think one of Royal Caribbean’s cruise ships could have fit under it, but that might be an overstatement (doubt it). Up and over the bridge and right at the bottom of the west side we had to do a right side 180° to go under the bridge and then go right back up the bridge on the other side. It was under the bridge at about mile 26 that the other water bottle station was located (thankfully), so I did a quick stop to fill my water bottle. So if you are following the math, you probably figured out that I was only halfway through the 56 mile bike when I got back to the roundabout. That meant another trip up and down A1A and the crosswinds (a bit stronger this time), and another trip with the bridge. It was almost like an unshaded Sugarloaf Mountain. The first bottle station I mentioned earlier (remember that?), was empty: no bottles, just a pair of guys in volunteer shirts sitting. Luckily the water station under the bridge still had bottles, albeit no longer chilled. I forget at what point I realized that I do not like biking. But thankfully the bike was over.

Run – wait, let’s not call it that. Let’s call it “survive 13+ miles in an almost completely unshaded foot course.” Because that was basically what it this last leg of the triathlon was. As I started out I wondered if it was smart idea: a little nausea, the high heat & humidity, and knowing that there was barely any shade. I made it to the aid station at mile 1 and then the aid station at mile 2. There I downed a bunch of ice water, a cup of coke and dumped several ice water all over. That helped and I felt the effects within 5 minutes. Go a few miles, left turn down a side street a bit, come back to the main street but keep going, go under the A1A bridge (& finally find a bathroom), turn around, go up & over the A1A bridge, do a quick in & out of park only to go back over the bridge, do a 180° back under the bridge to thankfully start heading back to transition, only to do the out-and-back from earlier, and then finally go straight to transition. Confused? Yeah, so was I. There were mile markers, but I guess they could only afford a small handful – one for the bike course (a misplaced 20 mile sign at mile 18.5) and four for the run: miles 1, 5, 8 (on the wrong side of the road facing the wrong direction), and 12. Thankfully there were some animals that littered the courses: saw a raccoon scampering around some shrubs the first loop of the bike, lots of birds all around, some dolphins at the run bridge, and enough crabs (both dead & alive) to stock a seafood restaurant for a week. Also thankful that around mile 7 I held up a bit and stuck with another fellow Boca Tri member, Kyle and we kept ourselves sane for the rest of the race. Always easier to keep moving with someone.

So what did I learn? Never do a half or full iron distance race between March & October in the state of Florida, or southeast US – the heat (plus humidity) can be a killer. What’s next? The relay at GFT with my wife and we are sooooo glad we downgraded from the individual ultra distances. Will I do another solo half iron or longer? Probably not

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